This post is not for the contented normal folk who get by comfortably. It's for those always looking to challenge themselves, those who like being intellectually challenged. Like I was when I didn't bother checking how far my stay was from the run. My friend booked me into a shack in Morjim, which is so far away from Vasco (the marathon venue) that I might have as well travelled from Mumbai directly. This meant 140 km of biking on Saturday to collect the running bib which left me feeling like I'd already completed a marathon. The customary carbloading cheered me up of course but little did I know that the shack did not get water supply till 6 am. So off I went praying that the marathon venue had decent toilets, which it did. I managed to join the start line a few seconds before the flag off. Goa had pacers this time! I placed myself in the 'slipstream' of the 2.5 hour pacer for the entire distance and blanked out for most of the run, staring at the scenery and applauding when I saw those Kenyans on their way back, as usual. After the carb reload at Bhosle's at Panjim and a long nap, things promised to get interesting when the shady Shack Manager approached my friend and me at the restaurant, and offered to arrange anything we wanted, 'perfect, no problem, anything, you just tell me, no problem'. Said friend was down with fever and cold by then and I was half sick from the run too. So believe it or not, my friend did what our Babuji would have done, with extra almonds to boot.
